Responsive design and content adaptation for e-learning on mobile devices

In this multi-screen world, we spend most of our time shifting through devices from desktops to laptops, tablets, and smart phones, in different modes, sequentially and simultaneously. Orchestration of these learning contents from multiple devices is not an easy task. It is also a fact that there has been an explosive growth of mobile devices and practically every learner nowadays has a mobile device. This represents an immense potential for learning purposes. Mobile learning is undoubtedly not e-learning on mobiles. Expecting all e-learning courses designed for desktops to work equally well on mobiles is against the basic thinking of ubiquitous learning, since each of these devices is perfected for different needs, and possesses unique features. Presently, most of the rapid e-learning development tools in the market do not support responsive design. The aim of this research has been to develop a responsive mobile learning application and to investigate on its ability to provide content adaptation based on certain conditions such as limited bandwidth. A mechanism has been designed whereby the mobile device can identify the strength of the Internet connection available. The system operates on two metrics; round trip time and bandwidth and using these two metrics, contents to be displayed on the mobile device are eventually adapted. Azure Cloud storage has been used to build this platform. The resulting application is cross-platform and can be run on Android, Windows phone and iOS.